OLIVETTE — St. Louis County health officials destroyed thousands of animal shelter records last fall without seeking approval from the County Council as required, saying they didn’t know about the rule and that the destruction was necessary because of a pest infestation.
But emails show health department and animal shelter leaders were advised about the rule and were in touch with county attorneys weeks before the destruction took place. And two employees raised questions about destroying the records because of ongoing lawsuits against the shelter.
Deputy Director Kate Donaldson, who was serving as interim director of the health department at the time, maintains she didn’t know about the rule when she ordered records destroyed, spokesman Christopher Ave said. The Post-Dispatch obtained the emails through an open records request.
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Kate Donaldson, deputy director of the St. Louis County Department of Public Health
“The bottom line is she said at the time and says now that she made a mistake, that she should have known the procedure and she wasn’t fully clear on that,†Ave said Wednesday. “There’s nothing in any of these emails that changes that.â€
The health department oversees animal control, and both departments were working urgently last summer and fall to clear out years of clutter from the shelter in preparation for a nonprofit group to take over operations. Decades of cardboard boxes with paperwork were packed haphazardly in the mezzanine level of the shelter, making it a cozy home for cockroaches and mice.
Donaldson had worked for weeks with other department leaders and animal shelter employees to plan disposal of the records when a pest control company alerted them in late September to the infestation. Donaldson ordered her staff to destroy the records immediately because they posed a health threat, Ave said.
“ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ were preparing the building, working very hard, but the crisis occurred when the infestation was discovered. It deepened when she saw it herself and saw how bad it actually was,†Ave said.
Staff evaluated each document to see if it needed to be kept according to the county’s retention rules. They then had a shredding company destroy 250 boxes of records weighing roughly 20,000 pounds, though the county faced open records requests and three lawsuits related to its animal shelter.
Most of the records had been digitized prior to the shredding, Ave said, though the department isn’t sure how many. About three weeks later, an animal rights advocate sued the county alleging some of the destroyed records were relevant to the suits and open records requests.
County staff stopped short of destroying all the records. About 150 boxes remain in two mobile storage units at the Spirit of St. Louis Airport.
Emails show Donaldson had been in contact with county attorneys as early as August about getting rid of the records, and that employees were asking questions about destroying them.
On Aug. 31, animal shelter manager Leanderas Jackson emailed Dr. Carole Baskin, director of communicable disease prevention, asking her if they should proceed with destruction despite the lawsuits. Jackson said office services coordinator Rebecca Rainwater had said previously no records should be destroyed.
“When the lawsuits occurred, she was told that we were not to purge any files,†Jackson wrote. “That way there was no chance of anyone thinking we were getting rid of files that would pertain to either lawsuit.â€
Baskin told Jackson in response that Donaldson was seeking advice from the legal department.
On Sept. 28, Rainwater emailed Baskin asking about the lawsuits: “Do we no longer have to hold the records?â€
“Kate Donaldson is in touch with the County Counselor’s office,†Baskin responded, “so it should be safe to proceed.â€
Ave declined to comment on any advice county attorneys may have provided.
A Sept. 15 email from the county’s records compliance manager to health officials, and forwarded to Donaldson, detailed the process of obtaining council approval for records destruction.
Public health administrator Colleen Condren asked about retention policies in an email to Karen Aroesty, director of the department that oversees records retention. Condren copied Baskin, health department manager Dr. Vanessa Duris and policy adviser Katrina Utz.
“There’s boxes upon boxes full of paperwork that date back at least 10 years,†Utz wrote. “We intend to start going through everything in the next couple weeks. Is there someone at the records center that could help us go through things and then what needs to be archived, ship off to the records center? We’ll do the heavy lifting, we just need someone to direct traffic.â€
Aroesty forwarded the email records to compliance manager Jamie Hoeninger, who responded to Utz and Condren asking for a generic list of record types.
“I will then write to Council for their approval (usually takes 2-3 weeks),†Hoeninger wrote. “Once approved, I will reach back out to you to let you know it is okay to destroy these records.â€
The following week, Condren forwarded the emails to Donaldson and Utz, saying, “Keeping you ‘in the loop.’â€
Ave said Donaldson may not have seen the email. Donaldson wasn’t available for a phone interview Wednesday, but Ave said she thought at the time she could simply notify the council about destroying the records.
“This was an orderly transition that became a crisis when we realized that hundreds of boxes filled with paper were infested. That’s what happened,†Ave said.
